


Love Is Our Defence

by orphan_account



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enjolras sees dead people, Ghosts, M/M, Paranormal Investigators
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-08 10:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1131808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras is a clairvoyant who specialises in dealing with hauntings, and Grantaire is a lapsed Catholic who rediscovered faith the moment he realised that what Enjolras does isn’t a hoax or a placebo. It isn’t faith in God, precisely, but at least he hasn’t been required to perform any exorcisms so far.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Basically just shippy nonsense interspersed with paranormal weirdness. Title from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQIZbprxRaE) song. I'm tentatively planning eight parts to this, but we'll see how it goes.

Grantaire leaned against the doorframe and watched Enjolras slowly pace the length of the room, looking around in that peculiar way he had, his eyes flickering over things that weren’t there—or weren’t visible to Grantaire, at any rate. It was unsettling at first, but Grantaire was used to it by now.

The room wasn’t exactly large, but it felt bigger than it was because it was completely devoid of furniture. The rest of the house felt lived-in; this room alone did not. It was obvious that the apartment’s single occupant avoided it entirely. The hardwood floor stretched uninterrupted up to two enormous windows. There were no curtains, and the room glowed with the light of the afternoon sun.

"What do you think, Buffy? Is she yanking your chain, or what?"

Enjolras shook his head slowly, still gazing around the room. The fact that he ignored the nickname either indicated that he was getting used to it—unlikely, after almost a year of expressing his displeasure with it—or that he was very distracted. “There’s someone here.”

Well, that was positive, at least. Some _one_  rather than some _thing_  meant a person, most likely deceased, although there had been that one bizarre case of astral projection in Lyon. Grantaire stayed quiet and let Enjolras wander a little longer, content to wait and watch.

Finally Enjolras spoke again. “A girl,” he said decisively. “A young girl. She’s not a child but she can’t be older than sixteen or seventeen. She wasn’t a member of staff, I don’t think. She doesn’t wear a uniform.”

"Family member, then," Grantaire suggested, cleaning his nails with the switchblade he always carried.

"Seems likely," Enjolras agreed. He paused, and turned his head sharply. "Hello," he said quietly, and he wasn’t speaking to Grantaire anymore. "What’s your name?"

Names made it easier to get a handle on ghosts—names, or objects that held significance to them, or remains if they could find them, but usually that wasn’t necessary. All Enjolras really needed was a name, and he could send them on with a minimum of fuss. Of course, names could be difficult to come by for a variety of reasons: ghosts sometimes refused to tell, or they couldn’t, having lingered so long they’d simply forgotten. Records could be helpful but the older the death the slimmer the chances of finding anything useful.

The windowpanes rattled slightly, and even Grantaire caught an echo of the girl’s mischievous laughter. Enjolras’ answering smile was sudden and radiant. “She’s not malicious, she’s playful. She thinks she’s being funny.” He cocked his head, listening. “No, tell me  _now_ ,” he said to the ghost.

Grantaire rolled his eyes. “She’s never going to tell you. She’s having too much fun flirting.”

Enjolras wasn’t listening. “Give me an initial.” A pause. “L? Are you sure? You’re not teasing?”

"For Christ’s sake," Grantaire muttered.

"She keeps telling me L," Enjolras informed him, as if he hadn’t heard him speak.

Grantaire sighed and considered it. There hadn’t been much about the history of the house when he’d researched it, nothing interesting concerning early or mysterious deaths, just a list of names—

"Lafaille," he blurted out. "There was a Lafaille family who lived here in the ’20s."

"Daughters?"

Grantaire shook his head. “All sons, but the father had sisters who lived with them.”

"Do you remember their names?"

"Cécile," Grantaire said slowly, thinking back. "Gabrielle. Mathilde."

Enjolras shut his eyes for a moment and nodded. “Are you there?”

Accustomed to hearing only half of the conversation, Grantaire fished a cigarette from the crumpled pack in his pocket and settled in to wait, letting Enjolras’ words fade until all he heard was his tone.

Enjolras was done before he’d finished his cigarette.

"She’s gone?"

"Yes," Enjolras said quietly. "Gabrielle. She died very suddenly. I couldn’t tell why, but it was painless. Unexpected."

He’d be providing Grantaire with snippets of information about the ghost’s life for at least another hour yet, so Grantaire just nodded and stepped out into the hallway, letting Enjolras take the lead.

⁂

The first time Grantaire had laid eyes on Enjolras, they’d been the only two people in that slightly sad-looking roadside diner aside from the lone waitress. It had been about 4:30 in the morning. Grantaire was there because it was as far as his last ride had been willing to take him once they’d realized he didn’t have anything worth stealing; what Enjolras was doing there, Grantaire never asked, but he suspected it had something to do with the insomnia that came of living in a crowd of invisible entities that no one else could sense. Enjolras did not sleep often or well.

Grantaire didn’t know that at the time. All he knew was that they were the only two people in the diner at that ungodly hour, they were sitting in separate booths eating identical meals and drinking equally terrible coffee, and that blond man was probably the most beautiful person Grantaire had ever seen up close. Even at 4:30 in the morning he looked as if he’d accidentally wandered off a runway; he was androgynously attractive in a way that favoured femininity, all high sharp cheekbones, big blue eyes with improbably dark lashes considering the golden curls on his head, and the kind of lips that always looked as if they’d just been thoroughly kissed or bitten. He was tall and angular, and he moved with a sense of purpose that belied the slightly distracted look in his eyes.

The Dutch courage Grantaire kept in his flask loosened his tongue and prompted him to strike up a conversation with the man, who said his name was Enjolras. He invited Enjolras to sit with him, and Enjolras considered him intently for a moment, taking in two days’ worth of stubble and a well-worn leather jacket and a smile just this side of sardonic, before he agreed.

“So what is it you do for a living?” Grantaire had asked, running through the bullshit small-talk questions first so he wouldn’t be taken for a zealot or a serial killer when he started asking the man’s thoughts on humanity’s place in the universe. He absolutely hadn’t been expecting the answer he got.

“I investigate paranormal occurrences,” Enjolras said pleasantly, and Grantaire seriously considered asking him to repeat himself even though he’d heard him just fine the first time. “You?”

“Uh—sporadically employed, currently adrift. You’re a ghost hunter?” Grantaire asked, incredulous and delighted.

Enjolras scrunched his nose and rolled his eyes. “I don’t like that term. It sounds so Scooby Doo. But I do mainly look into hauntings, yeah.”

Grantaire looked down at his plate, fighting a smirk. “You’re, uh. You seem serious.”

“I am serious,” Enjolras said flatly.

“Okay,” Grantaire said, looking up at him and forcing himself to keep a straight face. “How do you get involved in that line of work? It sounds pretty…unorthodox.”

Enjolras shrugged, picking fries off his plate and toying with them rather than eating them. “My whole life I’ve been able to see things other people can’t. It made sense to me that I should try to do something useful with that gift.”

“Wait, you mean literally  _see_  things other people can’t?” Grantaire knew he was grinning now but he couldn’t control it. “Like a clairvoyant?”

“Clairvoyant’s one word for it,” Enjolras agreed mildly. “I don’t really identify with any one particular label, but I guess that’s as good as any to get my point across.”

Grantaire couldn’t help it; he laughed, but it was more incredulous than cruel. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but that is by far the strangest thing I’ve ever heard from anyone who wasn’t homeless or holding a sign about the End of Days.”

“How do you know I’m not homeless?” Enjolras asked pointedly, apparently unruffled by Grantaire’s mirth.

“Are you?”

“Technically, no. Practically, yes. That’s my car,” he said, indicating the red and black Camaro in the parking lot outside. “It’s more or less my home these days, but I have an apartment back home.”

“Ah.” Grantaire glanced out at the parking lot again. He considered asking where ‘home’ was, but thought better of it. Too personal; often people who wandered for a living did so for a reason. “You have a thing for old cars?” he asked instead.

“Not  _old_ ,” Enjolras corrected him with mock-severity. “Classic. She’s a classic.” He smiled, and it was startlingly lovely and full of honest amusement.

Grantaire resumed eating to distract himself from it, and for a moment it worked; but then his curiosity got the better of him, and he found himself asking, “So you really believe in ghosts?”

“Yes,” Enjolras said evenly. “I have good reason to.”

“Like what? Orbs of light in photographs and strangely chilly rooms?”

Enjolras raised his eyebrows. “Oh, a sceptic who knows what to look for?”

“I know a lot of things,” Grantaire said dismissively.

“I know how it sounds,” Enjolras shot back, perfectly composed. “I don’t mind that you think I’m crazy. Most people do. I like it that way. It means the majority of people haven’t experienced anything like what I deal with on a regular basis, and sometimes that’s a comforting thought.”

“Well, at least you’re a self-aware lunatic,” Grantaire said, only half-joking. “But tell me more. I won’t say that I believe you, but I confess, I’m intrigued.”

“What do you want to know?” Enjolras asked.

“How do you find…whatever it is you work with? I mean, they’ve got to be reasonably isolated incidents, right?”

“Isolated, and pretty widely scattered, geographically speaking,” Enjolras said. “But I don’t really find cases; cases tend to come to me. Word gets around, and as you might have noticed I don’t make any effort to hide who I am or what I do.”

“So you don’t hang out at churches handing out business cards to the superstitious masses.”

Enjolras snorted. “Hardly.”

“What do you charge?” Grantaire asked, and there was  _maybe_  a hint of malice in the question.

Enjolras regarded him unflinchingly. “That depends on the case,” he said simply.

Grantaire shrugged and sat back in his seat. “Fair enough, I guess. What does your average case entail, anyway?”

“There is no average case,” Enjolras said. “They’re all different; different people affected, different reasons for disturbances. Sometimes it’s nothing, just a noisy old house and jumpy new residents. Sometimes it’s more than that.”

“Like what? Give me an example. Are we talking dead people? Spectral figures walking through walls and moving stuff around while the family’s asleep, that kind of thing?”

“Sometimes,” Enjolras repeated slowly. “Sometimes…other things. I’m working on a case right now that’s possibly a combination of the two.”

Grantaire sat up. “Where?”

Enjolras hesitated, and then named a small town several miles down the highway. “There’s a farmhouse. It was mostly knocked down and rebuilt in the ’90s but its history is proving harder to shake.”

“You’re infuriatingly vague,” Grantaire told him. He wasn’t quite sure what prompted him to say what he said next, but it was out before he could think: “Take me with you.”

_That_ , at least, took Enjolras by surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“Take me with you,” Grantaire repeated, burying his own shock at his temerity and meeting his eyes squarely. “Why not?”

There were plenty of very good reasons why not, of course, not least among them the fact that they had met less than half an hour ago; but Enjolras chose not to mention this. Instead he said, “How’s your faith?”

Grantaire frowned. “What?”

“Your faith. Your belief in a higher power.” His eyes dropped to Grantaire’s throat. “That’s a nice St Christopher.”

“My mum’s Catholic,” Grantaire muttered, raising a hand to brush his fingers across the medallion and tuck it beneath the collar of his shirt.

“And you?”

“Not so much,” Grantaire said shortly.

“Hm.” Enjolras nodded, as if this answer was more than satisfactory. “You can come with me if you like. It’d be interesting to see how long you remain sceptical.”

 

⁂

Grantaire had remained a sceptic right up until the moment the single light bulb in the attic had shattered explosively and the pitch-black room had suddenly become desperately cold while the floorboards rattled for no reason he could name. He didn’t think; his hand shot out almost of its own accord and found Enjolras’, gripping tightly. Enjolras barely reacted except to squeeze his fingers and step a little closer.

They never discussed it afterwards, but if they spent more than a few nights with their hands clasped in a white-knuckled grip, well, it was just a practical way of ensuring they were never separated in the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

Enjolras avoided touching certain objects with his bare hands. He almost always wore long sleeves that he would pull down over his hands before opening doors, and when the bone-deep chill of winter set in he moved more freely in black leather gloves. He would touch things like cutlery and arm rests, but only after a tentative sweep of a fingertip, as if he were expecting the thing to explode if handled carelessly. It took Grantaire three weeks of quiet observation to conclude that he wasn’t simply mysophobic; if germs had been his problem, then why did he have no issue with touching other people’s hands, or the steering wheel of his own car?

“It’s one of your weird psychic things,” he realized aloud one day, watching Enjolras gingerly run the tip of his index finger along the rim of his teacup as they sat in a café, sheltering from the rain outside.

Enjolras looked up at him as if startled, and to Grantaire’s surprise he quickly dropped his hand from the cup and blushed. “I try not to be obvious about it,” he admitted.

“You’re pretty obvious about it,” Grantaire told him apologetically.

Enjolras sighed and shot the teapot that sat on the table between them a cagey look. “I sometimes pick up strong feelings or memories from objects. Usually I have to concentrate to do it, but sometimes the oddest things have been imprinted with overwhelming emotions or incidents and I can’t tell by looking. I’m just trying to avoid making a scene, that’s all.”

“You’d make a scene?”

Enjolras shifted uncomfortably. “It’s possible. If I’m not expecting it.”

“You’ve done it before,” Grantaire guessed.

Enjolras’ blush deepened. “There might have been some smashed dinnerware and some crying. Once. I’m not looking to repeat it anytime soon if I can help it.”

“Fair enough,” Grantaire said, and magnanimously poured his tea for him.

Weeks rolled into months, and Enjolras’ strange avoidant behaviour became familiar. Grantaire followed him, case after case, from city to city. In Prague, Enjolras encountered clients who were not only correct in their guess that their house was haunted, but daring enough to want to document the events. Grantaire insisted on making himself useful and getting the cameras set up while Enjolras did his level best to talk the homeowners out of trying to make their house a tourist attraction with such a markedly unfriendly spirit jealously guarding the spare bedroom. At the owners’ insistence, they continued the investigation with strict instructions not to scare the spirit off. Grantaire trailed in Enjolras’ wake with an infrared thermometer in one hand and an old-fashioned compass in the other, dutifully making note of any thermal or magnetic disturbances.

After three nights of this, they turned in a neat stack of printed interviews, copies of historical documents regarding the property, EMF readings, thermal data, hours of footage, and two photographs depicting what looked like smudges on the lens but were the closest Grantaire had ever come to actually seeing anything like what Enjolras saw. Enjolras insisted on splitting his fee with Grantaire; he interrupted his protests by tossing him the keys to the Camaro and telling him, “Wake me up when we get to the hotel.”

Grantaire barely noticed anymore when Enjolras paused to stretch the sleeves of his sweater down over his hands, or left his gloves on indoors. When spring came, he was reminded abruptly of the reason behind it.

He turned his back for two minutes in a crowded Italian market, and Enjolras vanished. Grantaire found him a few minutes later, perched on the edge of a fountain at the end of the street, with one sleeve rolled up and his arm in the water. Grantaire was ready to snap at him for disappearing like that, but then he looked up—and Grantaire held his tongue. He had never seen a look of such simple happiness on Enjolras’ face. He was a little sunburnt across his cheeks and nose, and he was smiling like a child on Christmas morning. Grantaire made a deliberate effort not to examine the feeling that swelled in his chest at the sight.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he drew closer.

“People throw coins in this fountain,” Enjolras explained, smiling, soft, like it was a secret. “For luck, or with wishes. It generally leaves a pretty strong impression on the coins themselves.”

Grantaire looked down into the clear water, and understood. Enjolras was running his fingers slowly across the bed of coins that littered the bottom of the fountain, oblivious to the chill of the water.

“What kind of things do you pick up? I would’ve thought it’d be mostly selfish stuff,” Grantaire admitted.

Enjolras’ smile only widened. “Yes, you _would_ think that. And you’d be wrong.” He closed his eyes, let his fingers sift through the coins for a moment, and came up with one, which he plucked out of the water and offered to Grantaire. It was small, silver, and oddly-shaped; Grantaire didn’t recognise the currency. He took it. “That’s a wish for the full recovery of a friend with cancer.”

Grantaire turned the coin over in his hands, thoughtful. “Oh.”

Before they left, he tossed a coin of his own into the fountain. Enjolras looked at him sideways, but Grantaire offered no explanation, and Enjolras didn’t ask.

⁂

“Why don’t you leave?” Enjolras asked one day, almost absently. He wasn’t looking at Grantaire as he said it, too absorbed in examining the old disused wine cellar they’d been called out to investigate. Grantaire hadn’t hesitated to follow him down the stairs into the waiting gloom and chill of the underground—if it was haunted, Enjolras would know what to do; if it wasn’t, then it was nothing more than a room.

The question threw him a little. He’d been expecting it sooner, if he was honest, but the longer he followed Enjolras the more it felt like a given. He could barely remember what he’d been doing before they had met, and he couldn’t think what he’d do if Enjolras had grown sick of him. He hesitated, unsure how to answer.

Enjolras looked around at him, suddenly wide-eyed in the dark. “I wasn’t suggesting that you _should_ ,” he added quickly. “I’m just curious. This probably isn’t what you bargained for when you asked me to take you with me.”

Grantaire released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and shrugged one shoulder half-heartedly. “I don’t have anywhere else to be,” he said. “And this is more interesting than drifting aimlessly.”

“Is it?” Enjolras murmured. He lifted one hand out of his coat pocket and trailed bare fingers across the cool stone wall. “I would have thought you’d find it equal parts boring and ridiculous.”

“No,” Grantaire said honestly. “I don’t.”

Enjolras dropped his hand and sighed. “There’s nothing here.” He angled a wry look at Grantaire. “We should probably tell them it’s safe to start collecting wine.”

“You know that old man is _sure_ he saw a demon down here,” Grantaire muttered.

“He’s welcome to call a more obliging psychic,” Enjolras said loftily. He paused, and said, “You’re not bored,” not quite a question, but not a statement of fact, either.

Grantaire snorted inelegantly. “You’re a lot of things, Enjolras, but boring isn’t one of them.”

“And you don’t think all of this is ridiculous?”

“If you’re asking whether I’m a _believer_ , I suppose the answer’s yes. Congratulations. You’ve convinced me.” Grantaire scuffed one foot in the dirt. “Would you prefer if I left you alone from now on? You can just say it, you know, you don’t need to dance around it and play 20 Questions hoping I’ll get the hint.”

Enjolras frowned and shook his head. “No. I told you, I’m curious. I know why _I’m_ here, but you’re more of a mystery.”

“You really don’t see the appeal? I spend all my time traveling the world with the most—” _beautiful_ “—unusual person I’ve ever met, checking out haunted houses and getting paid to occasionally drive the car and haul the equipment. It could be a lot worse.”

“Well, there’s always that,” Enjolras said dryly. “It _could_ be worse.”

“Shut up, you know what I mean. Go tell those people they just have a naturally creepy cellar. I’m starving.”

Enjolras tried to fight his smile, but he wasn’t good at hiding his emotions; everything he felt showed on his face, and right now he looked nothing short of content. Grantaire supposed that meant he had convinced him he wasn’t going anywhere without him anytime soon.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part was written in the midst of a horror movie marathon and I think it shows? Anyway. Enjoy.

Occasionally, they came across a spirit that was evasive to the point where not even Enjolras could easily pinpoint its nature. In those cases, if the haunting hadn’t been too violent and didn’t bear any of the tell-tale hallmarks of an impending demonic possession—the reek of rotting flesh, inexplicable knocking or banging in patterns of three, one member of the household bearing the brunt of escalating aggression—Enjolras would intentionally lower his defences and leave himself open to act as a conduit. The temptation of a living human body, real vocal cords and solid flesh with an immediate connection with its physical surroundings, was usually too compelling to resist.

Enjolras was always dazed after functioning as a physical medium, sometimes for hours afterwards. Grantaire would take over for a while, wondering how exactly Enjolras had gotten along by himself for all those years before Grantaire had found him. He was completely unfit to drive, staring around with unseeing eyes. Grantaire had to get a hand on his arm and steer him as he walked. It was as if the place he vanished to when he retreated from his body was reluctant to give him back, clinging to him like sticky syrup. It unnerved Grantaire, but he knew there was no complaint he could make that Enjolras would pay attention to; so he just drove them back to wherever they happened to be staying at the time, got Enjolras fed, and put him to bed to sleep it off.

Grantaire would sit beside him with a pencil and a sketchpad close at hand, ready to scribble down anything he heard Enjolras’ mouth say while his body was in the spirit’s grip. Most of the time the dead were soft-spoken and almost shy, not seeming to know what to say first, or who to direct it at. Very occasionally, they were anything but soft-spoken. The first time Grantaire had found himself seized roughly by the shoulders and pinned in place while not-Enjolras screamed at him in a language Grantaire hoped never to hear again, he’d been so shocked that he had slapped Enjolras’ face none too gently and barked, “Get out of him!” It was an instinctive reaction, ill-considered, and it shouldn’t have worked—but it did, and had every time since.

Enjolras looked at him oddly when he brought it up.

“You shine, when you do that,” he said awkwardly. “I know you can’t see it, it’s an aura thing. But you do, I mean literally, you shine like—”

“Bright like a diamond?” Grantaire couldn’t resist interjecting, and Enjolras fixed him with a withering look. “Right. Sorry. I shine, huh?”

“White light indicates faith,” Enjolras said slowly, studying him with rare undivided focus. “It’s almost blinding in you sometimes, but you say you wouldn’t consider yourself a man of faith.”

Grantaire frowned. “I wouldn’t. Me and God don’t have the best relationship. He calls sometimes, I just tell Him that He’s not my real dad and hang up.”

Enjolras didn’t even crack a smile. He had been raised Catholic, the same as Grantaire, but unlike Grantaire he had never been at odds with his faith; Grantaire supposed facing off with literal demonic forces probably went a long way toward cementing a person’s belief and trust in a higher power. He considered himself a lost cause as far as religion went, but he was more than content to trail around in Enjolras’ wake, watching him invoke the name of Christ and wield an undeniable power through it. If Grantaire could help at all, even if it was just by flaring brightly with panicked protectiveness and frightening off uncouth spirits when the situation demanded it, he was more than glad to do it.

There were missteps, of course.

In Seravezza they dealt with a family of six who were desperate to be rid of the spectre of a little girl who walked the hallways of their house at night, rattling doorknobs as she passed and sobbing ceaselessly. She wasn’t at all shy of appearing to the family, but she was wary of Enjolras and Grantaire. After chasing her for a week with no luck, Enjolras decided to act as medium and see if that wouldn’t resolve the issue.

The girl took hold of him almost immediately, and the change was obvious to everyone in the room—the anxious parents, their wide-eyed brood of children, and most especially Grantaire. Enjolras’ entire demeanour changed. It was as if someone had pulled on a mask that looked a lot like him, but everything about it was off; his shoulders hunched and he curled in on himself, drawing his feet up onto the chair where he sat, hugging his knees to his chest and staring around at the gathered audience with a child’s eyes.

The little girl pressed Enjolras’ fingers to Enjolras’ lips and mumbled something in rapid-fire Italian. Grantaire reached up and gently pulled his hand away from his face. “What was that?”

“Doesn’t hurt anymore,” she said softly in Enjolras’ voice. Unlike Grantaire, Enjolras barely spoke Italian well enough to order himself dinner; but the words that flowed from his lips now were pronounced with careless speed and an odd pitch, as if the girl couldn’t find a way to make the man’s voice match her own.

“What doesn’t hurt, sweetheart?” Grantaire asked gently.

“Everything,” the girl/Enjolras said.

Grantaire frowned; he didn’t know quite what that meant. “Okay. Can you tell me your name?”

“Marta,” she said, and Enjolras’ golden head turned to look around the room. “I can’t see him. Is he gone?”

“Who?”

“The devil,” she said simply.

Grantaire’s blood turned to ice.

He wasn’t sure he really believed in the devil, but he _did_ believe in demons. In Enjolras’ company he’d dealt with one before, and it was an experience he wished never to repeat. Plenty of demons liked to claim they were _the_ devil. But Enjolras hadn’t sensed its presence at all, would _never_ have left himself open like that if he’d known there was anything demonic within a hundred miles of this place—

“What do you mean, the devil?” he asked quickly, hoping it was just a strange turn of phrase.

“He’s the _devil_ ,” the girl repeated, as if he were terribly slow. “He’s followed me for a long time, he pinched me and bit me to make me cry so I’d wake everybody—”

“Christ. _Fuck_. Okay. I need you to get out of my friend’s body,” he told her firmly, trying to push down his rising panic. If he was panicking he couldn’t think, and Enjolras needed him to be able to _think_. “Can you do that for me?”

The girl contorted Enjolras’ face into an expression torn between fear and petulance. “No. I won’t. I’m not going back.”

“You _have_ to,” Grantaire gritted out.

“Why?” She asked defiantly, crossing Enjolras’ arms and trying (and failing) to swing his legs under the chair.

“Because if you don’t I will do much, much worse to you than pinching or biting,” Grantaire promised her coldly. “Now _leave him_.”

The girl glared at him with Enjolras’ eyes for a moment longer—but then she was gone, and Enjolras went limp as a ragdoll. Grantaire stood up and leaned over him, pushing his hair out of his face and talking to him in a low, urgent voice, begging him to answer. “Enjolras, please wake up, tell me you’re in there, Jesus _Christ_ I am never letting you do this stupid shit ever again—”

Enjolras jolted upright so suddenly that Grantaire sprang back, startled. For one nauseating moment he realized he wasn’t sure who to expect when Enjolras opened his eyes and looked back at him—but the expression was one he recognised, and he almost sagged with relief as Enjolras closed his eyes again and took a breath before he looked around at the stunned family and said, “Take the children and get out. _Now_.”

Grantaire translated for him without bothering to turn and see whether they seemed inclined to cooperate; a moment later he heard them scrambling to leave, which was good. Less positive was the fact that Enjolras did not seem to be in the same kind of hurry.

“I was wrong,” Enjolras told him. His eyes were still unfocused, as if he’d recently taken a blow to the head. “The little girl isn’t the only one here.”

“Marta.”

“Marta. Her death was an accident.”

“Tell me who else is here,” Grantaire snapped. He was already on edge and Enjolras’ hazy state was doing nothing for his nerves.

“Not a person,” Enjolras muttered, and pressed his fingertips to his eyelids. “Not human.”

“You’re telling me there’s a demon in this house,” Grantaire said incredulously, “and we’re _not_ leaving?”

“I have to help her,” Enjolras said, as if this should have been obvious. “I can’t just _leave_ her with it. It’s been tormenting her for decades, and she’s trapped here with it because she doesn’t know how to move on—”

“So what do you propose we do, exactly?”

Enjolras sighed. “The demon won’t let me near her. We have to either trap it or distract it.” He hesitated. “If I let it possess me—”

“No,” Grantaire said immediately.

“Hear me out.”

“ _Absolutely not_. I feel sorry for that kid, okay? But that is by far the stupidest idea you’ve ever had and I’m not letting you do it. We’re going.” He fixed Enjolras with such a ferocious glare that he fell silent. “Don’t think I won’t throw you over my shoulder and carry you,” Grantaire warned him.

“We’re coming back tomorrow,” Enjolras said firmly, and Grantaire rolled his eyes.

“You keep telling yourself that,” Grantaire said, and got a hold of his hand to pull him up out of the chair and drag him toward the door.

It slammed shut.

Grantaire stared at it for a moment, frozen. No matter how many time he saw it happen, it was always eerie to witness objects moving of their own accord. The temperature started to dip. There was a terrible scraping sound that Grantaire couldn’t place until Enjolras tightened his grip on his hand and nodded at the far wall.

There was a crucifix nailed above the mantelpiece there. It was being turned, slowly, laboriously, dragging against the wallpaper and leaving behind ugly scratch marks. It stopped when it was perfectly inverted.

“Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle,” Enjolras began in a low voice. “Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.”

Grantaire knew the prayer well enough; after a moment he added his voice to it, speaking more from force of habit than out of any conviction that it would help. They finished the recitation in unison, and there was a still, tense silence in the moments that followed.

Grantaire didn’t look around for any sign of the entity’s presence or disappearance; instead, he watched Enjolras’ face. He looked slightly unfocused still, as if he were drunk or high, but his grip was firm and steady, and the sudden chill in the room was wearing off. In that, at least, the movies were right: demons really didn’t like the sound of prayer. Grantaire doubted it had gone far.

“Can we get out?” he asked Enjolras in a low voice.

Enjolras blinked and looked down at Grantaire as if surprised to see him still standing there, clinging to his hand like it was a lifeline. “We could. It’s angry, but I don’t think it would follow us. It’s too attached to the family living here,” he noted grimly. Grantaire felt slightly ill. “There’s still that spirit, though. If I let it—”

“You are _not_ letting that thing possess you,” Grantaire snarled. “Have you lost your mind? Even if you did, I wouldn’t have the first fucking clue what to do. You’re the one who helps the ghosts do their little vanishing act—and even if I could get that ghost to move out without your help, how am I meant to get _you_ back?”

“You’ve heard me do it a hundred times,” Enjolras said quickly. “My gift is seeing them, not speaking to them. She’s still nearby, if you talk, she’ll hear you. You know how to talk, don’t you?”

“That doesn’t explain how I’m supposed to get you un-possessed,” Grantaire said frantically. There was an odd light shining in Enjolras’ eyes; suddenly Grantaire was deathly afraid that he’d just _do_ it, right here, right now, and leave Grantaire holding hands with some unnameable malicious creature that’d tear his throat out with its fingernails as soon as look at him.

“Just tell it to go,” Enjolras said, confidently, ridiculously. “Do what you always do. Light up.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

But Enjolras had already abandoned the conversation; he was looking around with growing purpose at the array of chairs in the room. “You’ll have to restrain me,” he said.

Grantaire forced his fear and frustration down and spoke as steadily as he could manage: “ _Excuse me?_ ”

“Quickly!” Enjolras said. He had settled himself in an armchair and was looking impatiently at Grantaire, as if he expected him to produce rope from his jeans pockets and commence binding Enjolras to the furniture with alacrity. When Grantaire just stared, he made an irritated noise and said, “There are handcuffs in the bag.”

 _The_ bag, because although it had originally been Enjolras’ bag it now belonged as much to Grantaire as it did to him, considering Grantaire was the one who packed and hauled the thing more often than not. It held an array of odd tools and pieces of equipment (most of which was not originally intended for ghostbusting purposes, Grantaire was sure), but the handcuffs had been more of a precaution than something Grantaire ever really intended to use.

“I’m not going to handcuff you to a chair!” Grantaire shouted, because they had been through some seriously questionable shit together, but this was by far the stupidest plan Enjolras had ever come up with and Grantaire was about ready to draw a line in the sand and say ‘no more’.

“Grantaire,” Enjolras said sharply, “we don’t have time to argue. What else would you have me do?”

Grantaire hesitated, painfully aware that he was out of his depth but instinctively resisting the idea of being left alone to tie loose ends he couldn’t even _see_. He bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood, and turned to dig through the bag for the handcuffs.

Enjolras remained still and silent as Grantaire cuffed both his wrists to the arms of the chair. He tested them automatically when Grantaire was done, struggling hard enough to bruise the delicate skin beneath the metal; Grantaire resisted the urge to wince, watching him, but he knew it was necessary. Demon-possessed people were terrifyingly strong. He eyed the heavy wooden chair and silently hoped it was as sturdy as it looked.

Enjolras nodded once, apparently satisfied. “Thank you.”

“What if I can’t do it?” Grantaire asked again. He knew he was starting to bleat the same fears over and over like a frightened child, but he couldn’t see how this was supposed to end well when it was all riding on him.

Unexpectedly, Enjolras smiled at him. “I have faith,” he said simply.

“Yeah, I know,” Grantaire muttered. “If God’s not dead it’s probably because you’re singlehandedly keeping Him alive through sheer stubbornness.”

Enjolras made an odd noise that could have been interpreted as laughter. “In _you_ ,” he clarified. “I have faith in you.”

Grantaire stared at him for a long moment, lost for words. Finally he said, “If I can’t get you back I’m going to make it my life’s mission to learn how to astral project so I can come find you and say I told you so.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Enjolras said, straight-faced. “Are you ready?”

“No,” Grantaire snarled.

Enjolras just looked at him, took a deep breath—and slumped, unconscious, on the exhale.


End file.
